WALTER HAGEN RETIRES

Evening Star, Issue 23147, 22 December 1938, Page 1

WALTER HAGEN RETIRES

GOLFS MOST COLOURFUL PERSONALITY THE SHOWMAN TOUGH (‘ Weekly Scotsman.’) With the retirement from competitions of Walter Hagen (reported from America) goes one of the most colourful personalities golf has ever known. There are innumerable good players in the game, but personality is by no means to he found in the same proportion, and personality such as Hagen possessed is among the rarer kinds. It lifted him at once even among his peers of the links; it did more—it made him a world figure. /

He was a bom showman; the bigger the crowd the better he liked it. The crowds trailing behind him in recent years were, of course, not so big as when he was coming over here and winning the open championship, but it was a tribute to Hagen that even when the titles became a forlorn hope for him he was never without spectators. That is by no means the common fortune, and I have seen ex-champions, no longer in the hunt, going round in big events with only their caddies for spectators. But had Hagen cared to continue competing I am certain that he would always have had spectators. There was a magnetism, about him, with his cavalier attitude, his head thrown back, the keen light of battle in his eyes, and generally a smile or a joke on his lips. Undoubtedly he was America’s biggest “ big shot.” Bobby Jones may have been,the greater golfer of the two, though that issue will keep clubhouse tongues going for a long time, but “ the Haig,” as the Americans called their hero, was the more colourful of the two, the longer at the top, and the more spectacular money-maker. Jones had all his triumphs behind him when he' turned professional, and then fie gave up tournament golf. WAS A PRE-WAR CHAMPION. In the public mind Hagen belongs entirely to post-war golf and to the amazing period in American history that saw their unbroken 10 years hold on the British open title. Hagen was the first native-born American to win the championship, in 1922, and he won it three times after that, so that he is only one title short of the wonderful records of Braid and Taylor and two behind Harry Vardon’s record collection, which at one time we thought would not,, be 1 challenged, far less by an American. But JTugg:' bo retires, at 46. actually goes /ark t'S.th© pre-war days. He first leapt to public notice by winning the United States open in 1914, and he marched further into the big money when in the following year he scooped the 1,000 dollars prize at the Panama Exposition tournament. To these prophetic successes he added the first American open after the war, but it is a curious feature of his wonderful record that he never again won in that event. He turned his attention to the British campaigning shortly afterwards, and. beginning with that victory at Sandwich in 1922, he looked as if he could win almost any time he cared to come over.

His first contact with our championship in 1921 was undistinguished, and it looked the more so after the story (denied afterwards by Hagen) had got into circulation that he said that he was coming over to do Deal in four 725. As a matter of fact he finished well down the list in that event. The fact that he made good in the following year was typical of the astonishing mentality he could bring to his competitive efforts. FOUR BRITISH TITLES. There was plenty of, colour and variety in the four championships he won in this country. I was a spectator at all of them, and each has left its own vivid pictures in my memory. There may be differences of opinion as to which was his best; the one that broke through first for American home-breds was the most historic, the last at Muirfield in 1929 was probably the best play-

ing performance of the four, in that he did two 75’s on the final day in a hard wind. That was his most consistent display in any of his successes here. Hagen no doubt remembers his first, for, late in that fateful day, he waited by the home green with frank anxiety to hear whether George Duncan was going to rob him of his landmark glory, or at worst tie with him. That was the year of the mercurial Scot’s bril- / liant failure. A 68 would have tied

with Hagen. Duncan did 69, and. I well remember his second to the last green which broke to the left. Had it, broken to the right and towards the pin, history might have been given a dramatic twist. That was a great day for American golf. The British Cup, it is true, had been taken to the States for the first time in the previous year, but the winner then wps Jock Hutchison, who was a St. Andrean settled in America. Hagen was the out-and-out American, and that made a vast difference. GREAT MATCH PLAYER. His next victory four years later at Sandwich was also remarkable in its own way. Hagen arrived in this country patently out of form, and explained that for a considerable spell he- had been making pictures in Hollywood. His form was confirmed in the money match he had to play with Compston, who trounced him to the tune of 18 up and 17 to play, but from the point b£ view of the British defence in the open championship that followed a fortnight later,' that was the worst thing that could have_ happened. It put Hagen right on his. mettle, and after an intensive 10 days’ practice the American won the championship—surely one of the most amazing successes, in the records of that event.

That Hagen was a great match player was, however, amply proved by the fact that he actually held the. American P.G.A. championship for four years, and the magnitude of that performance • need hardly be emphasisedHe had to take on the best of his American rivals season after season, and none of them, even in the matches that had to go to extra holes, could get Hagen down.

MADE £50,000 FROM GOLF,

Hagen made more than one fortune out of the game. Such were his personality and his reputation that he waa .able to capitalise them in big figures. His first British success put him right into the American moneyj and one Of the appointments he received was the presidency of the Pasadena Club during the Florida boom. That “ plum 't carried a salary of 30,000d0l per annum, and he held it for four yearsMeantime he was still competing in championships and tournaments and cashing in lucratively oii the many byproducts of his successes. It is estimated that ho made in all something like £50,000 from golf in various ways. >When! lie began winning championships in this.epuntry he v&s-a new-type ‘ W-scale professional. l On one life was accompanied from the States with his own personal caddie who, rumour Said, had a salary of £SOO a year. Hagen thought notnnig of handing his entire open chainpionship prize money to his caddie, and on one occasion he sent a caddie away to have a new suit of clothes. In heydey Hagen had an air of his own, something of swagger, something, of course, of showmanship, but that be was a favourite of the crowds was never in doubt.

When he was over here last year as non-playing captain of the victorious Ryder Cup team he was still the old Hagen, head still held high, still the laugh and the chaff ready for use, though he seemed comparatively subdued, and he told me he bad lost his putting. l But he was quietly emphatio that his team _ would win, and I am certain that his presence and his inspiration had no small part in their victory.